


AlphaWolf vs. the Super Geek

by involuntaryorange



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Crack, Humor, M/M, Pre-Slash, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-08 08:45:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11643021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/involuntaryorange/pseuds/involuntaryorange
Summary: You'd think the most challenging part of Derek's life would be the supervillains who are constantly trying to destroy the city. Not the cute, gatekeeping geek who sits near him in his history lecture.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even go here, you guys. But I've read a bunch of TW fic and when this plot bunny hopped into my head I knew it had to be Sterek.
> 
> Thank you to lezzerlee for the beta and for reassuring me that this isn't totally and completely off-base! (Any parts that ARE totally and completely off-base are my own fault, not hers, obvs.)

Derek knows he shouldn’t be checking his “professional” e-mail in public, but class doesn’t start for another ten minutes and Deaton said he’d send the prototype sketches for the new suit this afternoon. Derek's too impatient to wait until he’s back in the privacy of his own apartment.

The suit looks really cool. And practical, of course. That’s what really matters. (But it also looks really cool.)

He catches movement out of the corner of his eye and quickly turns off his phone screen just as someone sits down next to him in the lecture hall. He knows who it is before he even looks up: Stiles Stilinski, bane of Derek’s existence. (Well, okay, that’s an exaggeration. Obviously the _real_ bane of Derek’s existence is the revolving door of supervillains who keep trying to destroy the city. But at least they’re easy to defeat, and they don’t drive Derek mad with their constant hand-raising and pen-tapping and lip-licking and general attractiveness and, you know what, Derek is totally going to stand by his original statement that Stiles is the bane of his existence.)

Normally Stiles ignores Derek, which is how Derek prefers it. It’s a lot easier to stay under the radar if people ignore you. But today he turns to Derek and speaks.

“So, you’re a fan of AlphaWolf?”

“Uh.” Fuck, fuck, fuck. Apparently Derek didn’t turn off his phone quickly enough, but Stiles must have only caught a glimpse of the AlphaWolf emblem. Derek wasn’t aware that he had “fans,” but now that the excuse has been presented to him, it seems like a good one. “Yeah, I’m a fan.”

Stiles looks him up and down with a skeptical expression. “You don’t really seem like the type.”

“What does that mean?”

“You just, y’know.” Stiles shrugs and makes a complicated gesture with his hands. “You don’t look like a geek. Except for maybe the glasses, but those are, like, _cool_ now anyway. You probably don’t even need them.”

Derek self-consciously adjusts his glasses, which, all right, he doesn’t need in the _traditional_ sense, but they play a crucial role in maintaining his incognito identity. “I didn’t know geeks all had to look one way.”

“Fair enough, man.” Stiles shrugs, and Derek hopes that that means the conversation is over.

Of course he’s wrong. “Oh, did you see the AlphaWolf exhibit they had at the Daily Planet Center last month?”

“I… didn’t know there was an exhibit,” Derek says. Over the past few years, he’s learned not to pay attention to the AlphaWolf press. Half of it is negative and the other half is embarrassingly fawning, and neither helps him with his work.

“Dude, see, this is what I meant when I said you didn’t really seem like an AlphaWolf fan.”

Derek feels weirdly defensive of his fan status, even though it’s a complete lie. “Maybe I didn’t _need_ to go to the exhibit, because I already know everything there is to know about AlphaWolf.”

Stiles doesn’t think that’s a very convincing defense, judging by his snort. “Yeah, right. Do you even know how thick a sheet of steel AlphaWolf can cut through with his bare claws?”

“That’s—” Derek pauses and does some quick estimating, his fingers twitching with the urge to tap into muscle memory. “Like a quarter of an inch?”

Stiles scoffs. “Try _five sixteenths_ of an inch.”

“That’s practically the same thing.”

“Oh yeah? I doubt you’d be saying that if you were trapped inside a steel chamber with walls that were five sixteenths of an inch thick.”

Derek has in fact been trapped inside a steel chamber, and he’s not sure exactly how thick the walls were, but now he can say with surety that they were no more than five sixteenths of an inch thick. It is, admittedly, useful information to have. Not that he’ll tell Stiles that.

“I bet,” Stiles continues, leaning over his armrest-desk into Derek’s space, “you didn’t even know that AlphaWolf was ranked number three on _Superhero Weekly_ ’s list of all-time greatest superhero butts.”

“I w— he was?” Derek vaguely recalls Erica waving a magazine around and cackling, but he learned to ignore her a long time ago. “Wait, who were numbers one and two?”

Stiles waves a dismissive hand. “Superman and Wonder Woman, _obviously_. Now, I’ve never seen the magnificent AlphaButt in person” — Derek tries not to blush too obviously at that — “but I have a hard time believing it’s better than the Flash’s. I mean, dude literally sprints for a living.”

“Yeah, but the Flash doesn’t do any squats,” Derek says. “I mean, that’s what I heard. I heard he skips leg day because he says ‘every day is leg day’ for him.”

Stiles squints at him skeptically. (Have his eyelashes always been that long?) “Where did you hear that?”

“I don’t know. I read it somewhere. Probably online.” Derek realizes he’s already said too much, but seriously, he’s supposed to sit silently by while Stiles suggests that _Barry_ has a better ass? Surely the superhero code of conduct has an exception for precisely this situation.

“Whatever, man. I’m sure AlphaWolf’s ass is majestic. But a mere mortal like me will never get to gaze upon it.” Stiles sighs and shakes his head in disappointment.

Derek opens his mouth to say something incredibly stupid, probably along the lines of offering to get Stiles an autographed photo of AlphaWolf’s butt via a “mutual friend,” but thankfully Professor Yukimura chooses this moment to start his lecture. Stiles flails back into his seat and fishes a beaten-up notebook out of his backpack. His transformation into attentive student mode is more impressive than any quick-change Derek’s ever done.

Derek makes a mental note to ask Deaton about the back view of the new suit. Just to make sure everything is supported and… cupped properly. It’s only practical.


	2. AlphaWolf vs. the Kittens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles makes a beeline for Derek as soon as he enters the classroom, an excited look on his face. As he sits down, he asks, “Dude, did you hear about AlphaWolf saving the kittens last night?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this cracklet has somehow turned into an actual fic. I'm pretty sure there will be two more chapters after this. Thanks for all your kind comments on the first chapter, and I hope you enjoy the rest!

Stiles makes a beeline for Derek as soon as he enters the classroom, an excited look on his face. As he sits down, he asks, “Dude, did you hear about AlphaWolf saving the kittens last night?”

Derek wonders how he’s become Stiles’s go-to AlphaWolf chat buddy. He’s pretty sure he failed the geek test Stiles administered last week, and also failed at social interaction more generally. “Uh. I think I saw something about it on the news, yeah.”

Derek actually has three kittens waiting in his apartment. He guilted Erica into taking care of the feedings while he’s in class. Which mostly just involved waving the little gray one in her face; it has the saddest eyes of the bunch.

“They say he got the last of them out right before the roof collapsed. I mean, seriously. Who runs into a burning building to save a bunch of tiny kittens?” Stiles points a finger at Derek. “AlphaWolf, that’s who,” he says, answering his own rhetorical question.

“Probably a lot of people would,” Derek suggests.

“Yeah, right. Would _you_?”

“I, um. Maybe?”

“Well, I would call 911 and hope for the best. This skin isn’t exactly fire-resistant.” Stiles gestures up and down his own body, granting Derek license to admire the pale expanse of his throat. Derek wants to tell him that he should never, ever run into a burning building to save _anything_ , and in fact he should avoid open flames altogether. Does Stiles know about LED candles? Derek should tell him about LED candles.

“Did you see the video someone took of him cradling, like, five kittens at once?” Stiles sighs. “Man, I would suck his dick so hard.”

Derek inhales his coffee and proceeds to cough it up all over his shirt, while Stiles continues talking, undeterred. “Do you think his suit has a fly? It must, right? How else would he piss? Or does AlphaWolf not have to piss? Why do so many superheroes wear onesies? It seems super inconvenient. And also like wedgie central. You okay, dude?”

Derek, still kind of stuck on the dick-sucking thing, nods distractedly while he looks down at his coffee-splattered shirt. The burns on his chest from last night haven’t fully healed yet — something about the new suit material trapping the heat next to his skin, Deaton is looking into it — so he can’t do much more than dab gingerly at the stains with a paper napkin.

“Sorry, it occurs to me that you maybe didn’t want to hear about my fantasies re: giving AlphaWolf a beej. Sometimes my mouth just does its own thing. Talking-wise, I mean. Not fellatio-wise. Well, both, to be honest. Annnnnd, now I’m talking about blowjobs again, and you literally haven’t said anything in the past five minutes, and you’re probably wondering to yourself why I won’t just shut my mouth. Talking-wise _and_ fellatio-wise. ‘Fellatio’ is a weirdly elegant word, isn’t it? It sounds like something that happens in an opera. Please say something, dude, or else I’m just gonna keep saying the word fel—”

“Cat hair,” Derek grunts in desperation.

This time Stiles appears to be the one stunned into silence. His brow furrows. “Uh. Cat hair?”

“Do you know how to keep it from getting everywhere.”

“Dude, you have a cat? That’s _adorable_. I never got to have a cat growing up, because my dad’s allergic to anything with fur, and by the way, let me tell you, nothing cements your dork status in middle school faster than having a pet toad. Oh, but my friend Scott’s studying to be a vet, and he swears by lint rollers. Buys ’em by the dozen at Costco.”

“Thanks,” Derek manages. He needs to ask Deaton about whether he can use a lint roller on the suit. Or maybe Deaton can add some kind of fur-repellent coating, when he improves the suit’s heat resistance.

“So the cat is new? Or was it just bald until now? Man, do hairless cats ever just randomly grow hair? Would Rogaine work on a cat? Does Rogaine only work on things that _used_ to have hair? Like, if I put Rogaine in the middle of my forehead, would I grow a patch of hair there, or does it—”

“The cats are new,” Derek says. “I, um, heard this morning that the nursery that burnt down needed people to foster their kittens, so I volunteered to take a few.”

“Oh. My. _God_ ,” Stiles says, eyes wide. “You have _kittens_? Tiny, itty bitty little kittens? With the fur and the little toe beans?” He wiggles his fingers.

“Toe beans?” Derek asks, confused.

“First of all,” Stiles says, “kittens are wasted on you if you don’t know what toe beans are. Second of all, _please please please_ can I come play with your AlphaWolf kittens.”

“They’re not _AlphaWolf_ kittens. They’re regular kittens.”

“There’s no such thing as a ‘regular’ kitten, dude, every kitten is special. And these kittens were rescued by AlphaWolf, and cradled gently in his big manly paws, ergo they are AlphaWolf kittens.”

“AlphaWolf doesn’t have paws,” Derek mutters. “He has normal human hands, but with claws.”

“Figure of speech, dude.” Stiles looks at Derek hopefully. “So can I?”

And maybe it’s just because Derek briefly thinks Stiles is still talking about blowjobs, or maybe it’s the thought of Stiles in his space, cuddling the kittens, covering up the smell of antiseptic and fire with his own scent, or maybe all that smoke inhalation last night did more damage than he thought, because an hour and a half later he’s unlocking the door to his apartment with Stiles standing next to him, visibly vibrating with excitement.

“Hey Der,” Erica says as he opens the door. “Clark and Diana had a full bottle each, but Hal only—” Erica stops mid-sentence when she sees Stiles, and predatory grin comes over her face. “Oh, hello. Who’s this?” She ignores Derek’s glare and purses her lips, leaning over to give Stiles a clear view down her shirt. Why are all of her shirts so _low-cut?_ Doesn’t she own any turtlenecks?

“Uh, hi.” Stiles waves awkwardly. “I’m Stiles. Derek didn’t mention that he lived with his super-hot girlfriend.”

Erica throws her head back and laughs at that, harder than necessary, making her breasts jiggle. “Oh, honey, believe me, I am _not_ Derek’s type.” She winks at Stiles.

“This is Erica,” Derek grits out. “She’s a friend. For some reason.”

“Nice to meet you,” Stiles says, with another awkward wave. “Are you alsOHHH my god _THEY’RE SO CUTE!”_   Stiles appears to forget that anyone else is in the room as soon as he catches sight of the kittens, curled up on a towel in a box. He rushes over to the makeshift bed and stares at them, rapt.

“Well, I’m clearly not needed here, so I’m gonna head home,” Erica says. She gives Derek a thumbs-up and points it at Stiles’s back while mouthing _One hundred percent gay_.

Derek joins Stiles crouched at the kittens’ bedside while Erica grabs her things and leaves. Stiles looks enchanted, his mouth hanging open and his eyes soft, and he reaches out with one tentative finger to stroke the calico’s tiny forehead. “So what did she say their names were? Diana and… Clark? Like Clark Gable? Weird name for a cat.”

“They don’t have names yet. Erica was just making a stupid joke.”

“You should name them! I have this theory that cats should always be named after food. Like, you could name the orange one Drumstick. Or this spotty one could be… Pepperoni Pizza.”

“Those are terrible cat names.”

Stiles sticks his tongue out at Derek. Presumably he intends as a sign of derision, but Derek’s mind immediately leaps to the things Stiles could be doing with that tongue, and as enjoyable a diversion as it is, it’s not exactly appropriate. Derek clears his throat. “Anyway, there’s no point in naming them. I’m not keeping them, I’m just fostering.”

“Please. Like you could give these fuzzballs away?” Stiles picks up the orange tabby, which stretches sleepily as he holds it next to his cheek. “Look at it, Derek. You can’t say no to this face.”

“I can’t keep them,” Derek argues. “Between school and— and work, I spend too much time out of the apartment. It wouldn’t be fair to them.”

“Oh, what’s your job?”

“I work part-time at a call center.” It’s a well-worn lie, one designed to be as uninteresting as possible.

Stiles snorts. “ _You_ , Grunty McEyebrows, get paid to _talk to people_? I find that hard to believe.” Derek scowls, and Stiles laughs. “Case in point. Anyway, if you’re seriously not keeping these guys, I call dibs on Drumstick here.” Stiles plants a loud, smacking kiss on the orange tabby’s round belly.

“Really?”

“I mean, I have to check with Scott — my roommate — but like I said, he’s studying to be a vet, so I’m pretty sure he’ll say yes. Especially when I tell him that Drumstick is one of the AlphaWolf kittens.” Stiles’s eyes widen and he exclaims, “Oh my god! I’m touching something that AlphaWolf touched last night! Dude, how cool is that? That’s like… one step away from actually touching _him._ ”

“I need to go change my shirt,” Derek says, standing up awkwardly. “This one has coffee on it.” He makes a strategic retreat to his bedroom, where he digs a clean shirt out of the unfolded laundry and strips off the stained one. He pauses to inspect his skin in the mirror over his bureau. The burns have pretty much healed at this point, though the hair on his chest is still gone in patches, the skin pink and shiny where it’s new. He pulls the fresh shirt over his head just as he hears Stiles walking down the hallway.

“Hey, can you show me how to bottle-feed the— whoa,” Stiles says, appearing in the doorway, eyes glued to Derek’s torso. Derek hastily pulls the shirt the rest of the way down. “I didn’t know it was possible for a human being to have that many abs,” Stiles remarks. The kitten, which he still has clutched in his hands, starts squeaking and wriggling, pulling Stiles out of whatever fugue he’s fallen into. “Shit, sorry, that was, like, super inappropriate and creepy. I should’ve just waited in the living room like a normal person. I’m gonna go do that now.” Stiles jerks his head toward the living room and then he’s gone.

Derek takes a moment to collect himself, to forget the way that Stiles’s eyes had roamed up and down Derek’s body one final time before he retreated, and to reprimand himself for not closing his bedroom door. Thankfully his shirt was already covering his chest, or Derek would no doubt be coming up with some creative lies right now about new trends in manscaping. And with his luck, Stiles would just happen to be an expert in manscaping. Does Stiles manscape? Maybe he doesn’t need to manscape. It’s hard to tell what’s going on under all those layers of flannel and nerdy t-shirts, but Derek would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it: about how pale Stiles’s skin would be, his pulse thrumming at his wrists and neck, the scent of him—

 _No_ , Derek reminds himself. Stiles may be attracted to him, but that doesn’t mean anything. And Derek isn’t exactly in a position to date, what with the whole "turning into a crime-fighting werewolf" thing. He may not know much about relationships, but he knows that that’s the kind of secret you can’t keep from a significant other.

So Derek does one last check in the mirror and leaves the safety of his bedroom, back to the living room where Stiles is dangling one of his own shoelaces for the kittens to feebly paw at. Stiles smiles at Derek, apparently happen to gloss over the awkwardness of their previous interaction, and asks, “so how old are these little guys?”

“About three weeks,” Derek answers. “They can start on solids soon.”

“Cool cool.” Stiles’s nod turns into an awkward head bob, and after a silence he clears his throat. “Well, I guess I’ll get out of your hair.”

Derek doesn’t want Stiles to leave, but he has no idea how to say that — no idea if Stiles even _wants_ to stay, or if he’s finally realized that Derek is weird and antisocial and bad company in general. So he remains silent while Stiles stands up and dusts his jeans off, follows Stiles while he walks to the door, limping so his laceless shoe doesn’t fall off his foot.

“I fully intend to come back and check on my cat,” Stiles adds.

“Sure,” Derek says lamely, opening his front door. _You’re welcome here any time_ , he doesn’t add.

As Stiles walks out the door, he turns to face Derek, looking at him speculatively. “I know your secret, by the way.”

Derek freezes. He can hear his own heart pounding, churning through his now icy blood. “You… do?”

“Yeah. You’re secretly a total softie. I can’t believe I thought you weren’t a nerd, just ‘cause you’ve got those ‘grrr’ eyebrows.” Stiles arches his index fingers over his own eyebrows in demonstration.

Derek allows his shoulders to slump slightly in relief. “Whatever,” he says, giving Stiles a gentle shove out the door.

“I’ll see you in class on Thursday!” Stiles shouts as he heads for the elevator.


End file.
